Alumni Weekend 2018
Photos from the festivities.
Storms and Reforms
Puerto Rico’s Department of Education has been getting an extreme makeover under alumna Julia Keleher. It was a Herculean task even before the catastrophic hurricane.
The Idea of Love
On the job with the University’s eloquently soft-spoken, relentlessly positive, powerfully empathetic, turtle-admiring, Penn basketball-obsessed chaplain.
When William James Got Hungry
In an excerpt from his new autobiography, Penn psychology professor Martin Seligman tells the little-known story of the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting in 1904, held at Penn. Its reverberations were profound—for Penn psychology professor Edwin Twitmyer and for American psychology.
Everyone’s Song
Penn’s vibrant a cappella community contains a multitude of musical styles and cultural influences. Take a listen.
An Odyssey for Our Time
Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s epic has become a surprise sensation, a once-in-a-generation transformation of how English readers encounter one of the most iconic characters in all of literature. Fellow classics professor (and Odyssey aficionado) Peter Struck has some questions for her.
Confronting Denial
The four Gormans are all Penn alumni and all involved professionally in the mental-health field. In a new book, two of them—daughter Sara and father Jack—take a careful look at the psychological factors driving science denialism and how to counter them. Hint: more data isn’t the answer.
The Judges’ Lawyer
In successfully defending the irascible Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase—aka “Old Bacon Face”—against impeachment, Joseph Hopkinson C1786 G1789 helped set a high bar for removal from office and establish the principle of judicial independence.
Hope for Katherine Belle
How one family’s journey through the realm of rare disease led them to the newest frontier of precision genetic medicine.
Rifkin’s Next Revolution
Jeremy Rifkin W’67 launched his career as an activist by protesting the Vietnam War. Now he’s making perhaps his biggest impact yet advocating for a “third industrial revolution” to save the world from stagnating productivity and the ravages of climate change.
At the Center of It All
Bob Schoenberg has been leading Penn’s LGBT Center since before there even was one, really. As he retires after 35 years of caring counsel and fierce advocacy, the campus home he built is being renamed in his honor.
Hill Rises
The Eero Saarinen-designed landmark has reopened after a 15-month, $80 million renovation, with its distinctive mid-century style lovingly restored and a host of new amenities for students.
Everybody Comes to Casablanca
In film scholar Noah Isenberg C’89’s engaging investigation of “Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie,” the lives of the émigré actors who made up most of the cast share the spotlight with the famous love triangle and wartime call to arms. Their stories also echo forward to our own era’s debates over the treatment of refugees and immigration policy.
Prophet of Prosperity
Simon Patten, who led the Wharton School during the Progressive Era, was a pioneer of the economics of abundance, theorist of the second industrial revolution, and intellectual godfather of the New Deal. His descent into obscurity poses provocative questions about how the field has evolved.
Black Box Justice
Richard Berk designs computer algorithms that predict crime. As courts and cops increasingly use his and similar tools to shape everything from parole decisions to street policing, Berk has a warning: accuracy comes at the cost of fairness, and citizens must decide where justice lies.
Ron Gold’s Second Act
After an accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, Ron Gold C’83 W’83 struggled to come to terms with the “different hand of cards” he’d been dealt. But with the help of his wife and family—and some Penn friends—he’s managed to regain his zest for life and launch a new business to help others in his situation.